Covid: Care home's 'ticking time bomb' tests wait

Problems with testing care home staff for Covid-19 continue to cause anxiety, care home owners have told BBC Wales.

One operations manager said it felt she was sitting on a "ticking time bomb" as she awaited results that usually take around four days to come.

Care Forum Wales also said there were still problems with the number of false positive and inconclusive results.

A minister said the time during the Welsh lockdown was being used to boost testing in care homes.

Gaynor Jones, of Orchard Care Group which runs two homes in Wrexham, said they tested staff on a Wednesday - and receive the results four days later on a Sunday.

"You hold your breath to see if any of your staff test positive. If there was a large amount of positive results, what would we do? Who looks after the residents? We haven't got a massive pool of staff."

There have also been issues with couriers not arriving on time to pick up swabs to take for testing.

She said on one occasion she did not receive any results at all and was told "there was a backlog in the labs".

"The whole thing is a mess to be honest... we are doing our best and we have contingency plans in place should we be unfortunate enough to get a positive test.

"It makes you very fearful.

"We're doing all we can to keep Covid out, we're testing staff temperatures when they arrive and staff don't travel in uniform."

Staff at the company's Bay Tree and Cherry Tree care homes moved in for six weeks during the first lockdown to avoid transmitting Covid-19.

A recent survey by Care Forum Wales, which represents more than 450 care homes, nursing homes and other independent health and social care providers showed 29% of homes had experienced false positive results, while 28% had waited for at least one result for seven days.

More than half had experienced at least one inconclusive result in the previous fortnight.

A paper submitted to the UK government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) in June suggested the false positive rate for Covid-19 tests could be around 2.3%.

The chairman of Care Forum Wales, Mario Kreft, said false positives caused "great anxiety" and meant homes could have to close to new admissions for 28 days.

He said a lot had been learned about testing since the beginning of the pandemic but there was still "much to do".

"Testing has been a big problem throughout this pandemic and we need to get this right, because if we don't, we're not going to be able to ensure that system is able to flow and people can be discharged safely from hospitals and live safely in care homes," he said.

"We've got to ensure that the system is fit for purpose. So we've all got to work a lot harder to make sure that this works correctly [and] in a timely and accurate way."

Public Health Wales figures out on Wednesday show there were nearly 17,000 tests carried out in the latest week - mostly on care home residents and workers - and 27% came back from Lighthouse labs within 24 hours and 77% were back within two days.

Just over 94% had been processed within three days. Tests from around 1,000 people took longer.

The figures broken down show 3,607 care home residents were tested in the most recent week and 382 were positive, the most since the pandemic began, although mass testing in care homes only began in May.

Also, 209 care home workers tested positive.

The number of tests on care home residents is the highest since June, but 89% were still negative results - a slightly lower proportion than the previous week - and 96% of worker tests were negative.

Nearly 570,000 tests on key workers and residents have taken place since the pandemic began.

Eluned Morgan said the Welsh Government was "trying to use this time during the firebreak to speed up the testing process" to ensure there was not a spread of the virus in care homes.

"Improving that testing is what we are trying to do during this firebreak period", the mental health minister told a press conference.

In an earlier statement, the Welsh Government said all care home staff were routinely tested.

"When the prevalence of Covid-19 is high, the risk of our testing programme producing false positives results is lower, but we routinely re-test staff who receive positive results to ensure they are true positives," a spokeswoman added.

"We recently wrote to social care providers, health boards and local authorities to reiterate this."

The spokeswoman said the Welsh Government was pressing the UK government to resolve backlogs at Lighthouse Labs, where a rise in demand has caused delays in results being processed, and working with Public Health Wales to boost testing capacity.